Environmental Conditioning and Aerosol Infection of Mice

Eriko Kudo; Akiko Iwasaki

doi:10.21769/BioProtoc.3592

Environmental Conditioning and Aerosol Infection of Mice

Bio Protoc. 2020 Apr 20;10(8):e3592. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3592.

Authors

Eriko Kudo¹, Akiko Iwasaki^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520.
² Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA.

Abstract

Influenza infection models in mice are widely used to study flu-mediated immune responses and pathology. However, most laboratory mice are housed at 20 °C and 50% relative humidity (RH). To better recapitulate influenza epidemics and immune responses during winter seasons, mice were housed at 20 °C under different humidity conditions, 10-20% or 50% RH. Here, we describe a protocol for using aerosolized droplets to infect mice with influenza under different environmental conditions. Using this method enables influenza infection studies performed under more physiologically relevant conditions which better mimics human viral exposure.

Keywords: Aerosol challenge; Environment; Humidity; Infection; Influenza; Mouse.